Feasibility of pumped storage hydropower with existing pricing policy in Turkey

Efe Barbaros, Ismail Aydin and Kutay Celebioglu

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2021, vol. 136, issue C

Abstract: Pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH) has been used worldwide as a means of energy storage for many years. Unlike many countries with pumped storage, Turkey has not needed a PSH facility until very recently since the existing hydropower plants with large reservoirs provided the required flexibility to meet daily demand variations. The share of renewable energy in Turkey's electrical grid has significantly increased in the last decade. Moreover, the first nuclear power plant of the country is planned to start operating in 2023, reducing the hydropower share. All of these combined have begun to bring forth the need for energy storage and PSH. On the other hand, the high investment costs of PSH and present electricity pricing policy raises questions about the profitability of a projected PSH facility. In this paper, the Gökçekaya PSH project is selected as a case study to determine the profitability of a PSH implementation in Turkey considering probable operation scenarios based on hourly prices without any reference to environmental issues to highlight the consequences of pricing policy on storage schemes. Evaluations are made using real-time electricity prices and generation-consumption values through the perspective of both the public and private sectors. Results show that the current prices in the Turkish electricity market are not profitable enough for potential PSH projects to attract investment by the private sector.

Keywords: Electricity market; Electricity price; Energy storage; PSH; Pumped-storage hydroelectricity; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212030736X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:136:y:2021:i:c:s136403212030736x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2020.110449

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().